06 May 2007

Well, at least this injury took place on the field. Phillies right-handerFreddy Garcia was injured during batting practice Sunday night when he ran into an equipment cart that had stopped along the warning track at AT&T Park. Garcia, not expecting a cart on the warning track, simply pursued the ball and ran into it. Ryan Howard let out a loud 'Oooooooooh' when Garcia collided with the cart. The few thousand fans in the park who watched it happen gasped collectively.

The cart got the better of Garcia in the battle who suffered a bruised leg. To add insult to injury, he was carted off the field by the same cart that he ran into.

"I'll see how it feels tomorrow. Right now, it feels better," Garcia said after the game.

So did his heart, which finally had resumed its normal rhythm. "It scared me a lot. I hit it really hard. I was going full speed," Garcia said. "Who expects to get hit with a cart at batting practice?"

"I'm not upset. I'm just kind of curious why it was out there during our batting practice," Philadelphia general manager Pat Gillick said in the clubhouse, before his club concluded a four-game series against the Giants. "He has a contusion on his leg. They have him iced down. There's no fracture of any kind. We'll all have to wait."

The injury made Garcia a game-time decision on whether he will make his scheduled start Monday night in the opener of a three-game series at Arizona. If nothing else Garcia can chalk this injury up to hustling, and being a good teammate. If he weren't out there to throw the balls back in, who would?

The injury to Garcia is just one in the long line of bizarre baseball injuries. While baseball is not a contact sport, its injuries, while not nauseating, are often funny. Terry Mulholland once scratched his right eye by rolling over a loose feather in a hotel pillow, and Mike Remlinger broke his left little finger after getting his hand caught between two reclining chairs.

The winner of the injury-follies probably rests with John Smoltz. The Braves ace once scalded himself while wearing a shirt - the shirt that he was wearing...

Garcia's injury may be random and unfortunate, but he's got a while to go before he's in the company of those above.

You should probably change the Smoltz line from "while wearing a shirt. . . the one he was wearing" to "while ironing a shirt". Granted, it would be the most bizarre injury if Smoltz somehow hurt himself by simply wearing a shirt, but I don't think that's the story here.